The Brain In Ancient Egypt

Neuroanaesthetist Ira Rampil suggests that Egypt’s ancient medical men were well aware of the importance of the brain and understood the limitations to treating brain injuries that we have still not overcome today.

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“A giant wad of snot – isn’t that what Egyptians thought of the brain?” This quote from an esteemed neurosurgical colleague at a major teaching hospital reflects a popular assessment of the ancient Egyptians. Herodotus described some funerary practices where the brain was treated as useless, disposable waste, but this may have simply been a practical solution to a mortuary problem. Egyptian culture, however, from very early times was aware of the essential nature of the brain. I hypothesise that brain extraction was a strategy to improve the odds of quality mummification.

Evidence of Importance to Life

The paramount nature of the brain is reflected in a central feature of the earliest attested document in human history. The Narmer Palette, c. 3150 BC (shown above), depicts the king, exercising his power of life and death via the ‘smiting’ pose, a rapid means to destroy an enemy by disrupting the structure of the brain. Smiting was a standard icon for three millennia. Also on the palette is the depiction of decapitated enemies, another form of destroying the brain’s control of life.

War and violence were well known from Predynastic times, allowing ancient physicians to learn to triage and treat combat injuries and observe the consequences of these injuries. Soldiers also knew that the fastest way to immediately incapacitate an enemy in close combat was to injure their brain.